Janelle gasped. “Just like Chyna. No wonder you turned pale.”
“Yes, just like Chyna.” Ellen looked off in the distance as she said, “I had to fight very hard to get away.”
“It’s not your fault, Ellen,” Janelle said. “The man isn’t right in the head.”
“That’s what Leah said. That he has a love obsession, and his mind isn’t right, so he doesn’t think like normal people,” Ellen said. “Well not in those words. You know Leah. But that’s the sum of what she told me. And I still feel that if I hadn’t expressed enjoyment of all those gifts he left, it might not have gone so far to the point where he tried to grab me in the parking lot.”
“He sounds crazy and crazy people don’t think like we do,” Janelle said. “My ex would have you thinking up was down and right was left. And he’s got a lot of old oil money from his family. You ever hear of the black gold of Arkansas?”
“No,” Ellen shook her head. “But I know Texas has a lot of oil.”
“Well Arkansas had plenty of oil too,” Janelle said. “Look up El Dorado oil fields, and you’ll learn all about it.”
“I would if I had more internet access,” Ellen said. “It’s hard to look things up here. They always want to know why you want the internet. I know it’s for our safety, but it’s still frustrating.” She sighed.
“That’s true, it is,” Janelle said. “I used to watch funny animal videos online for fun and stress relief. But now I feel silly asking for online access to do that or for taking up a computer when one of the other women might need to balance their checkbook or pay a bill or something important.”
“I know what you mean,” Ellen said.
“Red sure uses that computer any time she wants to,” Janelle said. “She does whatever she wants and even gets away with stuff she’s not supposed to. Like going over her scheduled time. I don’t say anything because I don’t want her turning her hot temper on me.”
“She shouldn’t do that,” Ellen said. “You could tell Leah, when Red isn’t around to hear you.”
“Maybe,” Janelle said. “If she did anything big that would affect us, I would.”
Ellen nodded.
“When your janitor showed up in the parking lot, what did he do?” Janelle asked.
“He showed up one night as I was walking to my car,” Ellen said, “And he tried to convince me to go with him to his place for dinner. I said no, and when he couldn’t convince me to go, he grabbed me.”
“Oh my God,” Janelle said. “Just like Chyna.”
Ellen nodded.
“How did you get away?” Janelle asked.
“He was a lot stronger than me,” Ellen said. “And I’d never learned how to fight. The only reason I got away was luck. It wasn’t all me. I was fighting him, but he’d grabbed my ponytail and was forcing me into his truck. Rigby Mortimer would’ve taken me away in his truck and God only knows what he would’ve done to me at his place.”
“I’m so glad he didn’t, and you got away,” Janelle said. “But tell me how you did it. Was it one of the moves we are learning?”
“No, I didn’t know any of that,” Ellen said. “I would have lost the fight if a local fireman driving by hadn’t seen us and then turned on his siren as he pulled into the parking lot. It distracted Mortimer enough that when he turned, I hit him hard, and he let go of my ponytail. The minute his hand let loose, I yanked my head away from him, hit him again and then ran.”
“You were lucky,” Janelle said.
“I was,” Ellen nodded. “The police found out later, that a Rigby Mortimer went to the same college as me the same four years I was there. He was the same guy! So, he could’ve been watching me and following me for a long time. And they think he did because they found photos of me taken back then on the campus even in my first year. They don’t know when he first started watching me, if it was before then and we may never know.”
“Wow, that is scary,” Janelle said. “And you never guessed.”
“I had no clue he was even watching me at the elementary school we both worked at, until he tried to grab me. I thought he was just an ordinary assistant janitor, training to take over the janitor’s job when he retired.”
“Oh, Ellen, that’s so creepy,” Janelle said. “I wish crazy guys would have something that could tell us they were crazy when we looked at them. But they can appear so normal. Charming even. My ex-husband could be charming, and he’s handsome. I wish we could tell the crazy ones apart, so we’d know not to spend any time with them to begin with.”
“I wish so too,” Ellen said. “But anyway, I’m far away from my stalker now, hopefully. It happened in Ohio and Montana is a long way from there. I don’t know where he is, and hopefully he doesn’t know where I am, either. I don’t think he’s likely to travel from Ohio all the way to Montana.”
“I hope not too,” Janelle said. “My ex will probably leave me alone as long as I stay away from Arkansas. But I know stuff he doesn’t want anyone to know. His family thinks I’m a threat. So, I can’t count on him to stay away. I’ll have to start over, changing my name and everything I do.”
“Like being in the witness protection program?” Ellen’s eyes widened. “Do you know things that bad?”
